Family and Education

b. c.1660, 1st s. of James Chadwick, Merchant Taylor, of King Street, London and Enfield, Mdx. by w. Elizabeth. m. lic. 29 July 1682, aged 22, Mary (d.1687), da. of John Tillotson, dean of Canterbury 1672-91, 2s. 1da. suc. fa. 1678.1

Offices Held

Commr. for assessment, Kent and New Romney 1689-90, Mdx. 1690; freeman, Dover 1690; dep. lt. Kent 1694-d., lt-col. of militia ft. by 1697-d.2

Asst. Mines Co. 1693; commr. for customs 1694-d.3

Biography

Chadwick claimed descent from a Lancashire gentry family. His grandfather, a lawyer, was in arms for Parliament and sat for Nottingham under the Protectorate. His father, a prosperous merchant, was probably a member of a London Independent congregation, bequeathing £40 to its minister and £10 to its poor out of an estate of some £19,300; but Chadwick must have become an Anglican at an early age. He inherited property in Romney Marsh and a house in London, but after his wife’s death he lived principally with his father-in-law at Canterbury. No doubt this improved his interest at New Romney. On 6 Oct. 1688 he thanked the corporation for their ‘favour in designing me for one of the burgesses ... when there shall be occasion, and I esteem the favour the greater because I am wholly a stranger to you’. He further undertook to ‘preserve our religion and laws’, and his record in the Revolution shows that this was not merely a form of words. He accompanied Lord Winchilsea to Faversham on 12 Dec., and was sent by the deputy lieutenants to seek the instructions of the Privy Council for the disposal of the captive King.4

Chadwick was returned to the Convention for New Romney after a contest with Sir Charles Sedley, and also represented the port at the coronation. An inactive Member of the Convention, he was named to the committee of elections and privileges and to seven others, including those for preventing the illegal export of wool, relieving Huguenot refugees, and reversing the quo warranto against London. He was not recorded as speaking, but he supported the disabling clause in the bill to restore corporations, and was appointed to the committee on the bill for regulating elections in the Cinque Ports. He lost his seat to Sedley at the general election, but sat for Dover as a country Whig until he became a placeman in 1694. He died on 11 May 1697, and was buried at St. Lawrence Jewry. His family were left in financial straits, and none of his descendants appears to have entered Parliament.5

Ref Volumes: 1660-1690

Author: Basil Duke Henning

Notes

• 1. PCC 93 Reeve, 114 Pyne; Mar. Lic. (Harl. Soc. xxx), 102; T. Birch, Life of Tillotson (1753), 125.
• 2. Add. 29625, f. 122v; Eg. 1626, f. 23.
• 3. Sel. Charters (Selden Soc. xxviii), 239; Cal. Treas. Bks. x. 739; xii. 44, 206.
• 4. Vis. Notts. (Thoroton Soc. rec. ser. xiii), 48; A. C. Wood, Notts. in the Civil War, 133; Merchant Taylors apprentice bk. 1635-9, p. 175; PCC 93 Reeve; information from H. Horwitz; Birch, 251; Kent AO, NR/AEp, f. 6; N. and Q. (ser. 3), vi. 2, 22; Ailesbury Mems. 207.
• 5. Add. 33923, f. 462; Suss. Arch. Colls. xv. 209; CSP Dom. 1697, p. 162; Birch, 347, 349; St. Lawrence Jewry (Harl. Soc. Reg. lxxi), 195.